Neonatal pain in very preterm infants: long-term effects on brain, neurodevelopment and pain reactivity.

ABSTRACT: Effects of early life psychosocial adversity have received a great deal of attention, such as maternal separation in experimental animal models and abuse/neglect in young humans. More recently, long-term effects of the physical stress of repetitive procedural pain have begun to be addressed in infants hospitalized in neonatal intensive care. Preterm infants are more sensitive to pain and stress, which cannot be distinguished in neonates. The focus of this review is clinical studies of long-term effects of repeated procedural pain-related stress in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in relation to brain development, neurodevelopment, programming of stress systems, and later pain sensitivity in infants born very preterm (24-32 weeks' gestational age). Neonatal pain exposure has been qua

SUBMITTER: Grunau RE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3820298 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature